Dog prices are insane these days

axisus

We have been looking on the Pets4Homes site for a few months. The site seems at odds with itself. It is a goldmine of useful advice and information, but their 'estimate' prices for puppies from different breeds seem waaaaaaay off. 

Most that I have looked at are selling for 4+ times their estimates, around £2.5k to £4k for non KC registered pups!

Maybe they haven't updated the info for a decade, or maybe the pandemic has pushed prices right up?? 

strumjoughlamps

Yep, the reason dog theft is massive at the moment.

axisus

strumjoughlamps said:

Yep, the reason dog theft is massive at the moment.

As well as being an absolutely evil crime, the law is totally insufficient on this at the moment. I heard the other day that a stolen dog is seen the same as something like a stolen mobile in the eyes of the law. That is ridiculous and needs changing.

richardhomer

I’m thinking of getting a dog to make my Rolex seem less attractive to muggers....

dazzajl

I totally understand having your heart set on a certain dog and it’s always your money and your choice. 

If all you know is that you want the unconditional love and companionship of a four footed friend, please please please look at all the rescues that need a loving home. Then spend the fortune you’ve saved on something nice from a custom shop somewhere. 

poopot

Rescue or rehome dude...

a lot of folk have gone out and bought pups during lockdown... a lot of those dogs will be given up for rehoming once those divs realise what is involved with having a dog!...

register with all the rescue centres and get something that deserves to have a bit of attention lavished on it for once!...

ronnyb

They’re in demand because people have more time on their hands what with fur lough and all that. The police should be out there feeling a few more collars.

EricTheWeary

poopot said:

Rescue or rehome dude...

a lot of folk have gone out and bought pups during lockdown... a lot of those dogs will be given up for rehoming once those divs realise what is involved with having a dog!...

register with all the rescue centres and get something that deserves to have a bit of attention lavished on it for once!...

Dogs Trust ( and others I'm sure) are preparing for a tsunami of unwanted dogs later this year. At the moment rescue centres mostly only have harder to re-home animals so they aren't going to new dog owners. 

There are as something in the news a few weeks ago about a survey done amongst people who had become first time dog owners in the pandemic. I can't remember the figures but there was a lot of regret, a lot of dogs not being walked,etc. 

There was an article in The Times ( I think) by some journalist who'd bought a puppy for a few thousand £ and after a few weeks returned it to a happy dog breeder who then resold it. 

And, I know I go on about this but never buy a dog unless you are 100% certain where it has come from. With puppy prices through the roof there's an increase in puppy farming, dog thefts and illegal importation of dogs from Europe. 

Budgie

We were looking for a dog just before the first lockdown and had pretty much settled on a Border Terrier, which at the time were between £600-900 for a KC registered dog, the last time I looked they were £2.5K plus. 

Fortunately we managed to find a rescue dog - a Lakeland Terrier, just before we were locked down. He’s a cracking little dog too. There were lots of dogs I could quite happily have given a home to. All in he cost about £250.00 and I gave them a donation on top.

Sod the price gougers and profiteers and get a rescue dog

axisus

I 100% agree that going for rescue dogs is a wonderful thing, however, it is not always ideal for first time owners. I know of two families (some years ago) who went for a rescue dog, and in both instances the dogs had problems that they couldn't cope with and were subsequently returned. Both families went for a puppy afterwards and it worked out very well training it from scratch. I think experience with dogs helps a lot in this respect, and we don't have any.

For what it is worth, we HAVE been checking out rescue homes for a long time as well, but my wife will only accept a dog that is hypoallergenic as she has some allergy issues, and they literally never seem to turn up at rescue centres - I haven't seen ANY in the past 8 months or so! If I wasn't married I'd have had a couple of rescue dogs years ago!

TTBZ

Rescue/rehomed dogs are hard work and not for everyone, we have a rehomed beagle from a good ex-breeder and even she's a lot for us to handle. Lots of bad manners and so show at 6 wasn't even house trained when we first got her. Getting better but it's much easier to train a puppy than try and work with ingrained habits and behaviour of an older dog. That said it's still worth a look as it's a nice thing to do and saves a lot of money! Ours is definitely happy here, just very full on at times.

stevebrum

Time to roll out my standard answer - retired greyhounds make great pets. They don’t usually have the sorts of issues that some rescue dogs have, although aggression to other dogs/small animals is always a possibility. 

A properly retired racer straight from the track/a responsible trainer is the best route.

axisus

stevebrum said:

Time to roll out my standard answer - retired greyhounds make great pets. They don’t usually have the sorts of issues that some rescue dogs have, although aggression to other dogs/small animals is always a possibility. 

A properly retired racer straight from the track/a responsible trainer is the best route.

I'm sure that's good advice, but the wife only likes some types of dogs, so once again a restriction in our case.

Budgie

Yeah, rescue dogs are more than likely going to need more work, ours has. He is pretty aggressive to other dogs, although this has definitely improved over time. He was also very prone to jumping at cars and mainly lorries and tractors, he’s fine now though as he’s quite used to them. Hoover, linen baskets, buckets, power tools, parcels, hosepipe and a myriad of other mundane things get attacked regularly. He’s now started attacking me whenever I go to the loo or for a shower. It’s now part of his daily routine, he sprints upstairs and waits for me and starts to attack before I’m even upstairs. Actually on second thoughts, our dog is an idiot

stevebrum

axisus said:

stevebrum said:

Time to roll out my standard answer - retired greyhounds make great pets. They don’t usually have the sorts of issues that some rescue dogs have, although aggression to other dogs/small animals is always a possibility. 

A properly retired racer straight from the track/a responsible trainer is the best route.

I'm sure that's good advice, but the wife only likes some types of dogs, so once again a restriction in our case.

It wasn’t directed at you as such but yeah I understand that looks come into it.

They are, big, ugly looking bastards. Until you get close to one and then for me it was an appreciation of how muscular and athletic they are, you just need find the soft bit on top of the head to pat as they are all bones and muscle. There’s no wastage on them at all. Magnificent but not for everyone. 

TTBZ

We looked at greyhounds as they're super chilled out most of the time but none of our trusts would let us with kids under 5.

stevebrum

TTBZ said:

We looked at greyhounds as they're super chilled out most of the time but none of our trusts would let us with kids under 5.

Were they general shelters? The retired greyhound trust and its branches wouldn’t stipulate that I’m sure. 

boogieman

I mentioned this a while back but we’ve been looking for a dog for a while. My wife found a rescue Lab cross that had been brought in by a charity from Serbia. It had various issues, including an injured neck where it had been tied up for so long and it had got so stressed at one point it had chewed half it’s own tail off. So not exactly the most appealing of dogs, (and by that I mean we thought it have less appeal to some people) so we thought we’d go for it. My wife messaged the rescue centre and got a reply the following day that they’d had over 600 offers to rehome it in one day, so they’d closed the list. 

We’ve tried several other rescue centres but they’ve got super-picky about who’ll they entertain as new owners. We’ve got two cats, who grew up with our previous Lab so are very dog friendly, but that instantly seems to rule us out. 

Watch this space though, we should be finally be picking up something tomorrow. 

fob

EricTheWeary said:

And, I know I go on about this but never buy a dog unless you are 100% certain where it has come from.

This.

Times a 1000.

Talk to them a number of times; visit them; see the puppies with the mother; research the breeder etc.

And be prepared to invest time in training. Basic recall is a must.

axisus

EricTheWeary said:

And, I know I go on about this but never buy a dog unless you are 100% certain where it has come from. With puppy prices through the roof there's an increase in puppy farming, dog thefts and illegal importation of dogs from Europe. 

Yeah, that's why we have been looking a lot at the Pets4Homes web site. It's all quite above board and you can usually tell the decent people by their write ups etc. Most if not all seem legit.

fob

The Kennel Club has an approved breeder scheme too:

https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/search/find-an-assured-breeder/

Springywheel

How much do you lot pay on average every year to look after your dog? Food, insurance, injections etc.  

Keiko

Apparently more people are buying them to pose with on instagram. Fashion accessories like French bulldogs, so many around thesedays, and at least where I live there seems to be a hell of a lot more dog crap all over the pavements too. If you've got dogs, please pick up after them.

Deadman

Springywheel said:

How much do you lot pay on average every year to look after your dog? Food, insurance, injections etc.  

I'm mostly talking living with a poorly dog here, so ignore me if you think it's irrelevant.

Before he died, my dog cost me roughly £100 in tablets for his heart condition every month. His insurance was £60 per month so I saw quite a bit of that back. There were quite a lot of big bills towards the end of his life; 500-700 was common, but Sainsbury's always looked after us and we saw a good chunk returned in quick fashion.

Food was negligible as he was only small. A good quality dry food was only around £50 for a large bag and lasted him 2-3 months. 'Normal' vet bills, again, seemed pretty negligible before his illness took hold.

Groomers cost around £30-£40 every 3 months.

ThePrettyDamned

Be careful. 

A lot of first-time non-professional "breeders" out there are breeding their already-crossed dogs, with huge risk to the puppies of genetic disorders. They then advertise them for a high price and sell instantly without having them all checked over by a vet first. 

Vets can check for a lot of these issues, but it's expensive and takes time, and puppies piss and shit everywhere - right now it's easy to just list them for a couple of grand and sell them in moments, so they don't get checked. 

Know who you get one from. Or go to a rescue home. 

merlin

Dogs are in on it. They charge more so that the owners love them more, and care for them more. 
They also get a cut of around 15-20% from the seller which they invest in a hedge fund. 

digitalscream

ThePrettyDamned said:

Be careful. 

A lot of first-time non-professional "breeders" out there are breeding their already-crossed dogs, with huge risk to the puppies of genetic disorders. They then advertise them for a high price and sell instantly without having them all checked over by a vet first. 

Vets can check for a lot of these issues, but it's expensive and takes time, and puppies piss and shit everywhere - right now it's easy to just list them for a couple of grand and sell them in moments, so they don't get checked. 

Know who you get one from. Or go to a rescue home. 

Exactly. Unless you're getting a full musculo-skeletal score for both parents, as well as screening for all the breed-common genetic diseases for each of the parents (and the grandparents), and these are verified by your vet....the breeders are wastes of space and they're not qualified to breed anything.

The same goes for the ones who're advertising designer crossbreeds. They're not designer dogs, they're mongrels - but they're usually mongrels descended from "pedigree" dogs that have resulted from generations of inbreeding. The high prices have nothing to do with the dogs, and everything to do with the marketing that social media influencers are foisting on people.

KC registration is...a total misnomer. If you're not going to be showing the dogs, all it does is say that the dog (and its ancestors) conform to the KC standards, which themselves encourage inbreeding.

I say this as somebody who's owned six dogs, five of which were pedigree rescues and conformed (as expected) to KC standards. The vet bills to correct and manage the very genetic conditions the KC standards require have been fucking massive.

If you want a companion dog that's most likely to live a long, healthy life...go to a rescue and get a true mongrel, and kick every back-yard breeder in the nuts when you see them.

That last bit isn't required, but recommended.

Stratavarious

Rescues....  our dogs have been absolutely incredible.

Our current mutt is just the best thing ever. Super lovely, will chase balls till he collapses, defends the house if he had to and never gets nasty.  Cool as a cucumber with strangers and other dogs.

The whole ‘breed’ thing stinks IMHO - genetic cesspools.

Kittyfrisk

They're not designer dogs, they're mongrels - but they're usually mongrels descended from "pedigree" dogs that have resulted from generations of inbreeding. The high prices have nothing to do with the dogs, and everything to do with the marketing that social media influencers are foisting on people.

@digitalscream  That was a great summation of the whole 'designer dog' situation, including the morally bankrupt influence of the unregulated, self appointed, self serving Kennel Club. Animal welfare? Last thing on their cashflow minds.
In addition, I've personally had enough of portmanteau names for dog crosses, describing them as if they were breeds, in order to bestow doubtful attributes upon them 
 CockerPoo, Labradoodle, Chihuadane etc. * insert your own own favourite/most annoying made up name here.
They are all mongrels & mongrels are bloody brilliant, but concentrating the gene pool of such limited crosses is another very bad idea.
For those in any doubt about the detriment of bad breeding & inbreeding (pedigrees) versus random crossing, go look up 'Heterosis' & "hybrid vigour' 

Axe_meister

You save one dog you actually save two because it frees up kennel space to save another

Axe_meister

We are looking for a Bulldog rescue, to go with our two other dogs (Beagle and a Dachshund/Jack Russel mix), but it seems many rescues can't be rehomed with other dogs.